"Fuck it, let's just get out and go on foot. This pickup's had it" The Sergeant's voice shouted to the Private on the other side of the vehicle. "I'll get Joe, you go ahead and get some help." The Private just nodded, dumped his protective jacket in the sand and carrying only his sidearm and a water flask began running up the road towards the Army base. The Sergeant lifted Andy, the Staff Sergeant, off the back of the pickup and began carrying him up the road in a fireman's carry.

"B... B... Br..." The Staff tried to say, but he was too weak and too badly injured to talk. The pair got another mile up the road, before realising they would have to walk in the sand to stay hidden as they could hear a vehicle approaching from behind. Another hundred or so yards were travelled, but it felt like an eternity to them. The adrenaline fuelling their escape from the Taliban controlled city.

But it was about to get a whole lot worse...

"What's that beeping?" Thought the Sergeant, thinking he was hearing things. The beeping began to get faster and faster...

"Oh shit..."

Kandahar, Afghanistan: November 13th 2001- 0203:

The C-17 Globemaster's engines roared as it took off from the makeshift airfield. Because Kandahar was still under Taliban control, the only forward operations base the coalition could establish was a poorly maintained motorway about twenty miles east of the city. On board the aircraft were twelve military officers: eight British, three American, and two Canadian. On beds fixed to the deck of the transport aircraft with heavy duty clamps and attached to an array of life support machines were two soldiers: Both of them American. The ECGs kept a constant readout, while the breathing apparatus kept both soldiers alive. One of them, a young Sergeant in his early twenties, was in a bad way. His head had taken a pounding and they were worried about the kind of fractures that could have been sustained. His legs had been shattered too, with one doctor comparing them to half-empty toothpaste tubes. Another doctor, upon seeing these horrific injuries, vomited into a bucket. When the jet was at cruise altitude, the doctors began doing all diagnostics they could with the equipment they had.

"That's a head injury the likes of which I've never seen before" One of the RAF doctors commented, pointing with a pen and holding a clipboard in his hand. "How he is still alive I do not know. He's breathing all by himself, the life support is barely doing any of the work."

"Do we have a name, rank and number?" Another doctor asked. The first doctor reached for the Sergeant's collar to find the dog tags. They had been stained with blood. All they could gather from them were the soldier's rank and a partial number: A Sergeant, and the number

1—18-74. They were distracted momentarily by the sound of a flatlining ECG coming from the other end of the plane. The Staff Sergeant who was also on board was unable to hang on, and he died in the skies of northern Afghanistan. As one of the doctors covered him with the sheet, the others looked at the battered Sergeant.

"I'm just beginning to pray that this one hangs on until we get to RAF Waddington..."

Marble River Memorial Garden: September 25th, 2004- 0930:

Raccoon City, 2004. The T-Virus contamination following the outbreak of 1998 had been killed off, and the government had since rebuilt Raccoon City. The thousands of people who had been evacuated had returned, and they were all present at the memorial wall and garden along the Marble River, similar to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, where the names of all those known to have died in the outbreak were read out by a police officer on a podium.

"Bescot, George. Birch, Gary. Bowler, Tim. Brown, Sheila..."

The civilians stood facing the wall, heads hung low, listening for the names. As they were read out, a young girl cried as her father's name was read. A man standing beside her comforted her.

Meanwhile, standing behind the police officer, the survivors of the Arklay Mountain incident and the sieges of the police station in Raccoon City looked on. Among them were Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, who were now the leaders of the newly reformed S.T.A.R.S., as well as being senior members of the R.P.D. Other figures standing there were Leon Kennedy, Rebecca Chambers, Barry Burton and Carlos Oliveira, who, as well as Billy Coen, had been drafted into the police department. As the final name was read out, Jill, Barry and Chris turned and marched towards the flag pole, where the Star Spangled Banner of the United States was flying at half- mast. Jill lowered the flag and Chris and Barry, both in S.T.A.R.S ceremonial uniform, consisting of navy blue trousers (navy blue skirts for female officers), black shoes with black laces, and navy blue shirts which had black epaulettes with a gold border, and a S.T.A.R.S badge on the right sleeve. The R.P.D badge was on the left sleeve. Barry and Chris folded the flag and carried it past the crowd and placed it at the midpoint of the wall. It was a ceremony that has taken place since the rebuilding of the city was complete in 2001. Every September 25th at 9:25am, the time the last missile hit the ground, the city gathers at the memorial to pay their respects to those who died in that tragic accident. Every September 27th, the day the zombies killed the last of the police officers holed up in the police station, the police officers of the R.P.D stand at the monument in the police station, which has replaced the statue of the lady with the jug in the main hall, and remember the S.T.A.R.S members who died at Spencer Mansion and the police officers that died trying to save Raccoon City from the various monsters that populated the city. This ceremony differs from the civilian ceremony in that the Secretary of State turns up and that only police officers and their families may attend.

When Jill, Chris and Barry returned to their places, Carlos, Kevin Ryman and Richard Aiken fired three shots into the air like at a military funeral, on the command of Leon. The officers saluted, stood to attention, and relaxed. The civilians split up and headed back to their homes. The police officers headed back to their cars and back to the police station. Jill and Leon were still standing at the wall as the others left. Chris leant out of his car window and called to them.

"Hey! Are you coming?"

"We'll be back soon Chris" Jill called. "Leon and I have something we need to do here first."

"Ok then. Take all the time you need. I'll call if anything urgent comes up."

Jill and Leon waved as Chris drove off. Leon reached under his chair and picked up two bouquets of flowers. Jill reached under her chair and picked up just one. They made their way to opposite ends of the wall. Leon found the names he was looking for and placed the flowers in line with their names: Annette Birkin and William Birkin. Sherry moved in with Leon and Claire just after the government let her go on her 14th birthday and she had been adopted by them. Leon placed the flowers down on behalf of his adoptive daughter as Sherry was working in a school as a trainee history teacher in Raccoon City. Jill meanwhile had found the name she was looking for right at the end of the wall. She put the flowers down and saluted the name: Sergeant Mikhail Victor. The man who saved her life by sacrificing his own to let Jill and Carlos escape Nemesis on the tram during the outbreak. She looked up the wall at Leon who was standing with his head held low. After a minute, he looked down at Jill, and signalled that it was time to go. They climbed in to an unmarked car and headed back to the rebuilt police station, which looked exactly the same as the old one, much to the annoyance of Kevin, Leon and Jill, who found it hard to return at first because the ghosts of their fallen colleagues echoed the precinct at night.

They pulled into the underground car park and made their way up to the main hall, where they arrived just in time to see members of the S.P.F, as well as the S.T.A.R.S member that accompanied them to apprehend a criminal, struggling with him.

"Hey! Settle down! Just do as we say and this won't get any worse for you!" The S.T.A.R.S member shouted, and kicked the criminal in the back of the knee, causing him to fall over.

"You cops are all the same," the criminal replied grudgingly, "always arresting people for nothing, just wanting to get statistics."

"I could hardly call armed robbery and murder nothing, pal." The officer shoved the criminal a bit further towards the door where Leon and Jill were standing. What the S.T.A.R.S member didn't realise is that the criminal, knowing the S.T.A.R.S member was distracted, managed to grab the knife out the thigh holster and was able to cut the S.T.A.R.S member's leg. The officer shouted, and fell to the floor in pain. The criminal dropped the knife and tried to run, but was stopped when a S.P.F member hit him with a tazer gun, incapacitating him. Some police officers ran over to pick the criminal up and escorted him to the holding cells, with the other members of the S.P.F team behind. Jill and Leon rushed to the S.T.A.R.S member's aid. He started to stand, helped by Leon.

"Wait a second..." Leon began. "Are you the new guy? When did you start?"

"Next Monday," he said, grimacing.

"So you must be Brian MacFarlane." Leon smiled, realising who the man was. He introduced himself and Jill and exchanged handshakes before helping Brian make his way back up to the S.T.A.R.S office on the western side of the first floor.

Brian is tall man, standing over six foot one in height, and is taller than all of the other S.T.A.R.S members except Barry. He towers over Jill, even when she is wearing high heels, and is 3 inches taller than Leon. He is an incredibly well built man as well, and with all the protective clothing of the S.T.A.R.S uniform on, he's someone you certainly don't want to meet on a dark night in an alley. He keeps his short brown hair gelled forward, with the fringe up, and sometimes wears lightly tinted sunglasses while out in the field, with his young handsome looks making him look a much more friendly person than he first appears to be. Jill was the first to comment on his large physique.

"Just military" he told her, limping up the stairs, using the banister to support himself because of his stab wound. They walked round the corner and on the left hand side was the S.T.A.R.S office. Leon opened the door and showed Brian in. The room was larger than the old S.T.A.R.S office, so it could accommodate a couple of extra desks, and at the back through a set of doors were showers and changing facilities, with separate female ones, as well as a medical room where members injured in the line of duty could be patched up by S.T.A.R.S' resident medic. As they entered, Leon called for medical assistance.

"Rebecca! Bring a med kit in here! Stab wound to the leg!" Rebecca came rushing in and helped Brian into the small medical room that she worked in and he was sat down on the bed. Brian watched as she opened several drawers containing a selection of gauzes and bandages as well as a grabbing a small bag with other medical equipment in it. She was shorter than Brian, about six inches shorter than him, and had a slim build but there was a bit of muscle on her, and he thought she was rather pretty. She possessed short brown hair that looked soft to the touch, like something a person would love to sleep on and her face had delicate features, including dark blue eyes that were accented with a small touch of eyeliner and a minute amount of foundation and lip gloss on her face and lips. Rebecca had since changed from her ceremonial outfit and into her S.T.A.R.S uniform, but was without her Kevlar vest. Rebecca grabbed a pair of scissors and got straight to work

"What happened?" She asked in her usual friendly, polite voice, putting on some rubber gloves and cutting the leg of the trousers off before using antiseptic wipe on his thigh to clean the wound.

"I got knifed" He explained. Kicking himself over letting himself mess up on his first day.

"Don't feel bad about it. We all make mistakes. If he hadn't been wearing handcuffs he might have got that knife in deeper. But it shouldn't need stitching up. I'll put a dressing on it to stop it getting infected and you'll just need to take it easy for a bit." She pulled out a bandage and wrapped it tight around his thigh. "There. All done, you're good to go." She stood up, as did Brian, and Rebecca gave him her trademark thumbs up.

"Thanks. What's your name again?" Rebecca told him what it was, while Brian introduced himself"Injured on your first day on the job huh? I was shot on my first assignment, in that mansion in the mountains, by my own captain. He indirectly killed my team mates as well" Rebecca gestured to the large pictures that hung from the wall by the door to the hallway, of men standing in S.T.A.R.S uniform with a large American Flag hanging behind them, each one standing tall, proud and smiling: "Edward, Kevin, Forest, Enrico, Joseph, Kenny and Brad...""I'm sorry..." Brian didn't really know what to say

"It's ok." Rebecca smiled. She took him by the hand to help him to his feet and helped him back into the office.

"Well, I'd better get back to work. Lots of things need to be done back there." She shook hands with Brian and headed back into the medical room. As she reached the door she turned around. "Was nice to meet you.""It was nice to meet you too", Brian replied. Jill came back into the room, sporting her S.T.A.R.S uniform, minus the bullet resistant armour, so all she was wearing was her sky blue shirt and navy blue combat trousers with black boots.

"You two seemed to get on pretty well." She laughed. Brian just smiled, still seeming rather shy.

"This is your desk", said Jill, pointing. It's right next to mine, so if there are any problems, I'll be nearby. That big one at the front is Chris Redfield's, and then next to Leon's desk is Richard Aiken's and over there by the medical room door is Barry Burton's. He's the Bravo Team Captain, same way Chris Redfield is Alpha Team's captain, also yours. I think that's everything. You have any questions you need answering?" Brian thought for a second.

"Yeah, there is one. What do we do when there aren't any calls coming in?"

"When there's no paperwork to be done, you're free to walk around the precinct, get a bite to eat, visit the firing range, and go for a run round the grounds and so on. It just stops us being cooped up in here all day really. It would be a good opportunity to meet the other S.T.A.R.S members and know the layout of the station."

Brian thought that he should really get on with that paperwork for the suspect downstairs. In his head, he felt like he could work things out without having to ask for help, but at the same time he was scared of making another monumental screw up on his first day on the job. At least it was Saturday tomorrow, and he didn't need to get up.

"I've got a meeting with Chris and the Commander. The work never stops for us round here. Catch you later" Jill left the S.T.A.R.S office, closing the door behind her.

Brian took a processing form out of the desk drawer and immediately started filling in the boxes. There were too many charges to fit in to one box, so he took a piece of A4 lined paper and started to fill in all the charges that the fugitive was arrested for:

Robbery,

Arson,

Rape (at least 5 counts)

Drug trafficking,

Prostitution,

Accessory to Murder of the 1st degree (30 separate counts)

Driving without a license,

Driving while license has been revoked,

Driving under the influence of cocaine,

Driving under the influence of alcohol,

Possession of an unlicensed firearm,

Using a firearm in a public place,

Extortion,

Bribery

Assault with a deadly weapon (fourteen counts)

Assault on a police officer,

Attempted murder of a police officer.

"I think that's all of them" Brian thought out loud, and filled in the rest of the form, stapling it to the A4 paper. He stood up, limped to Chris' desk and put the file in the 'in' tray like Jill asked. He put his bullet resistant vest on his office chair, left the S.T.A.R.S office and started to explore the precinct.

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